adding play-services-maps dependancy auto adds glE

Question

I'd like to integrate with Google Play Services Maps module.

Since the maps manifest declare:

<uses-feature    
    android:glEsVersion="0x00020000"
    android:required="true"/>

Gradle's manifest merger adds this block to the resulting manifest making my app not supported on devices running OpenGL 1.0, however my Maps feature is not mandatory, and I do want to support these devices.

I've tried adding to my own manifest one of these:

<uses-feature
    android:glEsVersion="0x00010000"
    android:required="false" />

or

<uses-feature
    android:glEsVersion="0x00010000"
    android:required="false"
    tools:replace="glEsVersion,required" />

or

<uses-feature
    android:glEsVersion="0x00010000"
    android:required="false"
    tools:node="remove"
    tools:replace="glEsVersion,required"/>

But nothing works, either it automatically chooses the one with the highest value (2.0), or it adds both blocks to the resulting manifest, still making my app require 2.0

Answer 1

I was able to solve it using build.gradle hacks, by manually overriding the merged manifest source.

However I would prefer a more elegant way using Gradle's manifest merger tools (tools:node, tools:replace, etc.)

I removed the glEsVersion from AndroidManifest, and added the following to my build.gradle:

    applicationVariants.all { variant ->
        variant.outputs.each { output ->
            output.processManifest.doLast {
                def manifestOutFile = output.processManifest.manifestOutputFile
                def newFileContents = manifestOutFile.getText('UTF-8').replace("android:glEsVersion=\"0x00020000\"", "android:glEsVersion=\"0x00010000\"")
                manifestOutFile.write(newFileContents, 'UTF-8')
            }    
        }
    }